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You know what it reminds me of? Those "My Top 5 Moments in Gaming!" Youtube vids that 14 year old kids like to make. It really makes me wonder why she needed a Kickstarter to do this, because so far there's nothing particularly special about it at all. It's something you could have knocked up in your spare time. There's really little feminist content in here, it's just a goddamn list, and it's delivered in a remarkably prosaic way. "I'm bored" sums up the entire thing.

I wanted to say this but to be honest I was a little afraid. Then I remembered after I posted that the shit probably wouldn't hit the fan given the populace of RPS.

She could have spent like an hour a day on this and made 31 videos in a month and her cost would have been nothing since it would have been a hobby. And the quality wouldn't have changed.

Well she only asked for $6000, which is probably about right to hire a camera, camera operator and blue screen for a bit?

I think the $6000 asked for was to buy some consoles and some games. She posted a picture during development with several hundred games piled up, so I imagine it went on that.

While I agree it is a simple narrative of feminism and gaming (hopefully part 2 will actually pick up some argument), I still like the fact that these points are being discussed and brought attention to.

It's not a lot of money or effort to watch it, for anyone involved, so yknow.

She says near the end that it's one of the most widely used tropes in video games, it is, but it's also one of the most widely used in any entertainment medium ever since we started telling stories.

Did you skip through the video or something? She mentioned this with the specific examples from ancient myths.

I'm mostly with everyone in the 'well that was a big bit of nothing' camp though. Her arguments are weak or underdeveloped*, her delivery monotonous and the whole thing just felt lifeless. There is certainly a lot that could be said about all of these tropes and the industry itself but, based on this, she doesn't appear to have the insight or the teeth to really dig into all of that. Maybe she's just warming up but at the moment it feels like she really needs a partner; someone with more fire in their belly to balance out her more moderate approach.

* One example, for me, was the whole 'woman == ball' thing. I thought 'hmm, that is kind of true, the main villain is far more developed or prominent as a character than the damsel' but she didn't take that thread anywhere.

I find it to be a steady, level-headed display of patterns in the depiction of women in video gaming up right up to the present, likely explicated for an audience that didn't spend the last 30 years glued to a gaming console. It's a bit dry, but as I said, I'm likely not the intended audience, as that'd just be preaching to the choir.

Also, this thread makes me vomit.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

So we've got an arguably over-financed project, a woman purveying a crude brand of feminism with an often biased tone, a body of work suggestive of a willingness to stretch things for the sake of meeting an argument, a seeming disinterest in much beyond disseminating her opinion and facilitating pro-Sarkeesian discussion, and a presumptive attitude about fiction's having an obligation to promote her notion of a feminist ideal--crossed with a hateful, hyper-insane, dregs-of-the-internet response that's been poised in back-swing for months.

As for the video, I thought it was quite reasonable, especially compared to a lot of her other work. It serves to establish that the damsel in distress trope existed in video games at one time, and it does so fairly dryly, with minimal editorializing. I'll guardedly say that this is a promising start, but I hope she doesn't use the second part solely to chase the damsel trope into contemporary games. This really needs to be going somewhere.

While I was searching for her video earlier today, before it had been released, I stumbled across some worthwhile criticism of her and her past work that explores some of what makes her style of feminism so myopic (and intellectually infantile).

Also, regardless of your perspective, if you're here just to dump an opinion on her work without actually viewing any of it, what the fuck are you doing?

I find it to be a steady, level-headed display of patterns in the depiction of women in video gaming up right up to the present, likely explicated for an audience that didn't spend the last 30 years glued to a gaming console. It's a bit dry, but as I said, I'm likely not the intended audience, as that'd just be preaching to the choir.

Also, this thread makes me vomit.

Nalano sums up with uncanny accuracy my thoughts on the video and this thread.

Also, regardless of your perspective, if you're here just to dump an opinion on her work without actually viewing any of it, what the fuck are you doing?

I already viewed it, in the first format video and she's not saying anything new here. I gave this new video all the attention I felt it deserved, or at least all the attention I could before my stomach started churning. But if she's just going to retread old ground an old arguments, I'd ask why bother making this video at all? Except to poorly deflect accusations that she pocketed the majority of the Kickstarter funds.

There are three things that bug me about Anita Sarkeesian.

1. Her work is so thick with hypocrisy and self-conflicting arguments that if you poured it in a bowl you could plunge a fork into it and it would stand on it's tines. Not to mention that nothing she puts forth hasn't already been examined, re-examined and ground into soft peat by people far smarter and far more engaging than she is. All she does in these videos is regurgitate tired old radical feminist talking points. A fresh perspective would be nice, but she doesn't offer one.

2. She lumps all legitimate criticisms in with the benighted trolls from places like Newgrounds, Reddit and 4chan who sent her death, rape and rape to death threats. I have never condoned that behavior, nor would anyone who had any amount of human dignity and moral sensibility. But that does not excuse her from answering legitimate criticisms of her work, especially when she is so quick to criticize others herself. Doubly so when she's on record of saying that anyone who is not a feminist is a misogynist.

3. She received a ridiculous amount of money from equally benighted idiots who wanted to race to her side like the heroic men she hates so much. Of course that didn't stop her from taking the money and judging off what's seen in her new video at least 150k went into her pocket. Chalk it up to envy if you must, and you'd be half right as I'm currently living on PB&J and water 3 meals a day and have no access to a vehicle of any kind. But I would say the other half stems from moral outrage as I don't she's done anything to earn all that money and everything put together suggest and elaborate ruse to make money on kickstarter which succeed beyond her wildest expectations. I can't prove of this and have no intention to try to do so, but I don't have a problem with pointing out something that smells off to me and let people draw their own conclusions on it.

Is this the part where we're not allowed to criticise her because she's female or from the feminist camp? Because if so, this isn't how we're supposed to discuss topics like this. One side can't be beyond reproach or subject to criticism. I know this is a popular stance to take on RPS where the female crusader with a fancy hashtag is untouchable, but if we're going to go down that path one side becomes immune to criticism while the other has a totally indefensible position, whether it has merit or not. That's not the way to approach this thing, because her previous comments are often absurd and do nothing to advance dialogue except promote more hate.

The people spitting venom in the eyes of this woman like hateful, angry, deluded morons shouldn't be part of the discussion, but everyone here is being reasonable. It is reasonable to criticise this video because it says almost nothing. It makes a list of examples of a trope, with no real point. It shouldn't be a two-part video. I expected to see some sort of argument here, but I didn't see anything except "Look! Mario and the princess! And look! This Starfox game! And THE BALL!" which went nowhere. So did many others in this thread.

Nalano's Law - As an online gaming discussion regarding restrictions grows longer, the probability of a post likening the topic to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea approaches one.
Soldant's Law - A person will happily suspend their moral values if they can express moral outrage by doing so.

Is this the part where we're not allowed to criticise her because she's female or from the feminist camp? Because if so, this isn't how we're supposed to discuss topics like this. One side can't be beyond reproach or subject to criticism. I know this is a popular stance to take on RPS where the female crusader with a fancy hashtag is untouchable, but if we're going to go down that path one side becomes immune to criticism while the other has a totally indefensible position, whether it has merit or not. That's not the way to approach this thing, because her previous comments are often absurd and do nothing to advance dialogue except promote more hate.

The people spitting venom in the eyes of this woman like hateful, angry, deluded morons shouldn't be part of the discussion, but everyone here is being reasonable. It is reasonable to criticise this video because it says almost nothing. It makes a list of examples of a trope, with no real point. It shouldn't be a two-part video. I expected to see some sort of argument here, but I didn't see anything except "Look! Mario and the princess! And look! This Starfox game! And THE BALL!" which went nowhere. So did many others in this thread.

A good illustration of the "ruse" I was mentioning. I think calling it elaborate may have been giving it too much credit when it boils down to...

1. Bait and Infuriate Immature Trolls
2. ???
3. Profit

But I don't see a single person here suggesting any kind of immature rhetoric, only people giving out their opinions on the matter, which are quite varied as one would expect.

We even have a word for this scenario, it's called debate and there's nothing nauseating about it. (At least in the proper sense.)

A good illustration of the "ruse" I was mentioning. I think calling it elaborate may have been giving it too much credit when it boils down to...

1. Bait and Infuriate Immature Trolls
2. ???
3. Profit

But I don't see a single person here suggesting any kind of immature rhetoric, only people giving out their opinions on the matter, which are quite varied as one would expect.

We even have a word for this scenario, it's called debate and there's nothing nauseating about it. (At least in the proper sense.)

Dammit I have to agree with DH. Although certain not to be named people, did say some mildly misogynist things, this is perhaps one of the tamest discussions of the video you are likely to see outside of the feminist blogosphere.

Hardly vomit inducing material.

Anita is one of the feminists typical of rich white girl land, similar to Jill Filipovic for instance, that only care about stuff that affects rich white girls like herself, ignores racism and other axes of oppression and requires little to no work on her part. Blogging dull uninspired topics with poor writing and little flair is not useful activism.

I think it's the part where only NathanH deigns to discuss the topic she introduced, and everybody else is finding fault with her.

Absolute rubbish, the majority of the criticism in this thread is that people don't like her previous arguments and don't hold high hopes for this one, or that her first video is just a list of tropes largely devoid of commentary.

Nalano's Law - As an online gaming discussion regarding restrictions grows longer, the probability of a post likening the topic to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea approaches one.
Soldant's Law - A person will happily suspend their moral values if they can express moral outrage by doing so.

Absolute rubbish, the majority of the criticism in this thread is that people don't like her previous arguments and don't hold high hopes for this one

ie: arguing against her, not her point

Originally Posted by soldant

or that her first video is just a list of tropes largely devoid of commentary.

The list is the commentary. When you can forge a direct path from 30 years ago to today where gender roles are expressedly defined in a rigid manner by the largest gaming corporation in the business, you begin to wonder what sort of society finds this okay - especially when the overwhelming reaction is either "...so?" or "fuck that puta."

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

I think it's the part where only NathanH deigns to discuss the topic she introduced, and everybody else is finding fault with her. This one's a kicker:

I mean, not only is it pure ad hominem, but Dead Herald has clearly forgotten that lecturing game designers on game design is exactly what we fucking do here on the RPS forums.

Well obviously Dead Herald is an idiot. I tried to explain that in the other thread but you didn't wanna listen. But aside from him and paik, who I also think is a big moron on every topic, there haven't been any MRA rants or anything.

And what exactly are we supposed to discuss in regards to what she said, we all agree that DID is annoying and overdone, and otherwise all she did was list examples of a trope. There is nothing else to say.

Also we talked about her video, something she did, not her something she is. The video breaks no ground, isn't delivered interestingly, and doesn't really SAY anything at all.

The list is the commentary. When you can forge a direct path from 30 years ago to today where gender roles are expressedly defined in a rigid manner by the largest gaming corporation in the business, you begin to wonder what sort of society finds this okay - especially when the overwhelming reaction is either "...so?" or "fuck that puta."

The reaction isn't "so?", which makes it sound like people don't care. The reaction is "and?" because there is nothing that video would be good for aside from adding another stone on the mountain of "feminism is necessary" until the size gets large enough to overshadow society's message of "sexism is ok". The video individually has no value because its not convincing, its not adding to knowledge, and its dull. Its value is as extra mass in the social justice side of the scale, and frankly its mass isn't very large.

Well obviously Dead Herald is an idiot. I tried to explain that in the other thread but you didn't wanna listen. But aside from him and paik, who I also think is a big moron on every topic, there haven't been any MRA rants or anything.

And what exactly are we supposed to discuss in regards to what she said, we all agree that DID is annoying and overdone, and otherwise all she did was list examples of a trope. There is nothing else to say.

Also we talked about her video, something she did, not her something she is. The video breaks no ground, isn't delivered interestingly, and doesn't really SAY anything at all.

I'm not really a men's right's activist so much as I am an "everyone's rights activist". On that note, I am not an anti-feminist either. There are core principles of feminism that are just and should be applied to all people. Then there are some of the fringe principles, mostly associate with third-wave feminism, that are a bit loopy.

Also, stop calling me an idiot. I am not an idiot, and I don't appreciate you transposing arguments from one thread onto another just to call me an idiot.

I'm not really a men's right's activist so much as I am an "everyone's rights activist". On that note, I am not an anti-feminist either. There are core principles of feminism that are just and should be applied to all people. Then there are some of the fringe principles, mostly associate with third-wave feminism, that are a bit loopy.

Also, stop calling me an idiot. I am not an idiot, and I don't appreciate you transposing arguments from one thread onto another just to call me an idiot.

Fine, but dude, stop adding something new to my misogyny bingo card every time you post.

The video individually has no value because its not convincing, its not adding to knowledge, and its dull.

Not enough T&A, TBH.

It's not convincing? Not convincing of what? It's as straight-forward as internet videos get. And what do you mean by "not adding to knowledge?" Are you arguing that there's no special insights that she's making that haven't been made before? Perhaps. But it's also easily digestible and readily available. It's a Cliff Notes video, because not all of us have grown up with Mario and Link.

If the criticism is that there's no "so what are we gonna do about it," well, as no solutions are being offered here (besides "meh"), adding to the brickwork of the feminist edifice isn't exactly a step in the wrong direction.

Last edited by Nalano; 08-03-2013 at 03:10 AM.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen